Green Climate Fund

In his election campaign, President Trump stated that he would “tear up” the Paris Accord. More recently he has criticized the Accord for imposing on the US a high level of pledge to the Green Climate Fund (GCF), an United Nations institution that finances impoverished countries to reduce GHG emissions and mitigate the effects of climate … Read more…

Canada has finally recognized that many poorer, developing countries continue to need financial assistance from developed countries to mitigate and adapt to climate change. That is the result of the recent about face by Prime Minister Harper. He was confronted with an announcement by the US and numerous other countries, all of whom promised substantial … Read more…

The continuing yearly meetings of the Conference of the Parties will re-convene this fall in Lima, Peru. This Conference must show progress towards effective targets for GHG reduction and support for the Green Climate Fund.

This Fund is intended to assist those countries who do not have the resources or technological skills to institute measures to combat global warming. 4RG has consistently called for this assistance, as an aspect of a moral responsibility to less fortunate peoples. As we said in a previous blog:

The reasons for and the need for a Green Climate Fund should never be in doubt. Pope Benedict and other world religious leaders have been clear on the moral justification for such a fund. The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams in a shared a video of support, said, “It’s no time for despair – but it’s certainly no time for complacency either. The moral crisis is as real as ever. And we need as never before real moral leadership from the international community. We need to know that governments will fulfill the pledges that have been given by the richer countries, to provide $100bn by 2020.”

There are other ways to assist developing countries in this combat. Climate Action Network (CAN) follows the deliberations of a UN-sponsored NGO, the Open Working Group on Sustainable Solutions (OWG), which is currently working on the formulation of goals. CAN has pointed out that the link between climate change and poverty must be addressed in recommendations from this NGO.

Several countries are opposed to including climate change issues in these recommendations. We can’t identify this countries but we have our suspicions.

So we have joined forces with many other organizations, both in Canada and abroad, to insist on the identification of climate change as a big factor in endemic poverty. Extracts from the submission letter to Co-chairs and members of the Open Working Group (OWG) on Sustained Development Goals (SDGs) follow